Description
Book SynopsisPresents a journey through the universe of signs in search of how the natural world came to mean something to someone. This book shows that life at its most basic depends on the survival of messages, written in the code of DNA molecules, and on the tiny cell - the fertilized egg - that must interpret the message and from it construct an organism.
Trade ReviewFrom reviews for the bestselling Danish edition: " ... dashing and idiomatic language that is a pleasure to read." Berlingske Tidende " ... an appetizer and eye opener ... Hoffmeyer is a modernistic pioneer in the wide open spaces of the natural sciences ... " Politiken " ... extremely well written and interesting manifesto for a bioanthropology ... " Inf. "It should be read by anyone who likes to be wiser and at the same time to be challenged in his habitual conception of the relations between culture and nature." Weekend Avisen
Table of ContentsForeword
1. Signifying
On lumps in nothingness, on "not"
2. Forgetting
On history and codes: the dialectic of oblivion
3. Repeating
On Nature's tendency to acquire habits
4. Inventing
On life and self-reference, on subjectivity
5. Opening Up
On the sensory universe of creatures: the liberation of the semiosphere
6. Defining
The mobile brain: the language of cells
7. Connecting
On the triadic ascendance of dualism
8. Sharing
On language: existential bioanthropology
9. Uniting
Consciousness: the bodily governor within the brain
10. Healing
On ethics: reuniting two stories in one body-mind
Notes
Bibliography
Index
